Disappearing Animals "Ferocious Beast Mural" Tells August 12, 16:28
After the war, a zoo was decorated with three large murals.
Both children and adults were fascinated by the painting.
What was drawn was "the missing animals".
These paintings convey memories of the zoo and war.
(Nagoya Broadcasting Station Reporter Tetsuro Kawai)
animals on canvas
A room in the Nagoya City Art Museum.
It is decorated with three huge paintings that are five meters wide.
The drawings depict animals from all over the world.
The Arctic and Antarctic, where polar bears and penguins nestle on the ice.
"Southern Tropics" where majestic tigers bark in dense forests.
"Africa" where elephants and lions advance through the majestic grasslands.
The name of the picture is "Ferocious Beast Gallery Mural".
The background of the drawing is the history of a certain zoo.
Animals disappeared in war
"Higashiyama Zoo and Botanical Garden" in Nagoya City.
Located in a green park close to the city center, it is crowded with many families on weekends.
The park opened in 1937, before the war.
More than 290 species of animals are kept, and more than 1.5 million people visit each year.
It was called "the best zoo in the Orient".
It was a place where many children interacted with animals and was filled with the smiles of the citizens.
However, the daily life of the zoo is suddenly taken away.
In 1941, the Pacific War broke out.
The industrial city of Nagoya became a target for the US military.
In Higashiyama Zoo, there is a place where memories of those days are carved.
"Just this picture. Judging from the shape of the wall, I think it's in this position."
Mr. Chatani, the deputy director of the zoo, guided me to the lion house.
It is one of the few remaining pre-war facilities.
The deputy director is holding a photograph taken during the war.
You can see him pointing a gun at a lion.
Koichi Chatani, Deputy Director of Higashiyama Zoo
"In December of 1944, when the air raids were getting worse, I asked the hunting club to shoot me."
During the war, zoos all over the world faced "wild beast disposal".
Animals may escape from air raids and harm civilians.
It is said that as the war situation worsened, public opinion demanding punishment grew stronger.
On December 13, 1944, Nagoya was hit by an air raid.
Lions, leopards, tigers and bears were also shot dead at Higashiyama Zoo.
Koichi Chatani, Deputy Director of Higashiyama Zoo
“It is still the case today, but the animals raised in zoos are like family members. I want to avoid that at all costs. I think it was a very difficult decision to make. I think that even we were in this place with feelings that we cannot even imagine.”
Before the war, Higashiyama Zoo boasted over 1,100 animals.
Only about 20 animals, including two elephants, chimpanzees and birds, survived the war.
"Pictures" of missing animals
Three years after the end of the war, the zoo, which lost many lives, comes up with a plan.
The idea is to create a mural painting a full screen of lost animals.
A newspaper at the time described the thoughts of the director of this project.
Comment from Principal Eiichi Hokuo (from the Chukyo Shimbun dated October 2, 1948)
"Just imagining the shining faces of the children who will be fascinated by the ferocious beasts that they longed for will soon make their way onto the big screen makes my heart flutter. There is no greater happiness than this if it can serve as food for the hearts of those who have not been abused.”
Three leading painters of the time agreed with this plan.
Due to the war, there were few materials related to animals, but based on the limited information, I continued to paint.
The three murals, which were completed in just one month, were displayed in a former hippopotamus house named "Beast Gallery".
In November 1948, tens of thousands of people visited the zoo on the day the mural was unveiled.
I have a photo from this time.
Adults and children alike stare at the animals resurrected on the canvas with fascination.
Koichi Chatani, Deputy Director of Higashiyama Zoo
``Since various animals are scattered like hidden pictures, people at the time must have looked for them, thinking, ``There is such an animal here.'' I used to have many animal species, so I think I imagined a zoo like this
mural.In this painting, I feel a lot of my feelings about how to cheer up Nagoya, which was devastated after the war, especially the children. I think it's included."
A war painter painted a blue sky after the war
Three murals that shine a light on postwar society.
One of the painters who drew it was Saburo Miyamoto, a Western-style painter representing the Showa era.
Miyamoto participated in the project while living in Tokyo at the time.
Why did she get involved in mural painting?
We visited Deputy Director Hashimoto of the Setagaya Art Museum, who is familiar with Miyamoto.
Mr. Hashimoto pointed out the relationship between Miyamoto and the war.
During the war, Miyamoto was commissioned by the military to create "war paintings" as a war painter.
It is a picture aimed at “uplifting the fighting spirit”.
There is a photograph of Miyamoto at that time.
The painting in the background is Miyamoto's masterpiece of war paintings, "The Press Conference of Commanders Yamashita and Percival."
It is a work that records the history of the "victory" when the Japanese army pressed the British army to surrender.
This photo was taken at the exhibition hall, but the tag "Tenran" is pasted on the upper right.
Deputy Director Zenpachi Hashimoto, Setagaya Art Museum
: “Things seen by His Majesty the Emperor were labeled 'Tenran', but for ordinary people, seeing the same thing itself is a great honor. This is a
scene in which Japan presses for surrender.I
think this was a very moving event for the general public.It was propaganda that made good use of Japan's organizational and social structure at the time."
Miyamoto raised his reputation as a painter through many of these war paintings.
However, on the other hand, he said that Miyamoto may have had mixed feelings as he gazed at the battlefield.
Setagaya Art Museum Deputy Director Zenpachi Hashimoto
“The lives of people and lands that have been trampled on. , What I should draw should have been different.It was not an era when I could show it to the public.I think you can say that it continued to accumulate in one person inside me."
This is a work that Miyamoto faced after finishing the era of war paintings.
That was the mural at Higashiyama Zoo.
What can an artist do in postwar society?
What he drew was the land of Africa, where the blue sky and grasslands spread all over.
And it was the appearance of the animals who live strongly.
Deputy Director Zenpachi Hashimoto, Setagaya Art Museum
“As a painter, I think I had to take responsibility for thinking about how I should connect with post-war society. I feel that Miyamoto-san saw the mural painting at the zoo as a project that would lead to hope in a time when all of Japan was drenched."
“Ferocious Beast Wall Paintings” for future generations
After the war, animals returned to the zoo and the wild animal murals naturally finished their role as the zoo regained its former bustle.
Currently, it is stored in the Nagoya City Art Museum, but it is damaged and dirty in various places.
It has been 77 years since the end of the war, and a restoration project has begun to preserve this painting for future generations.
It is said that restoration will be completed next fiscal year, and that the mural paintings of wild beasts, which are closer to their original state, will be open to the public.
Koichi Chatani, Deputy Director
of Higashiyama Zoo “How has Higashiyama Zoo been loved? Painful memories of the war. , It is also a material that tells history.
The lives of animals lost in war.
People who wished for reconstruction and peace.
Mural paintings filled with these thoughts will be passed down to future generations.
Nagoya Broadcasting Station Reporter
Tetsuro Kawai Joined the station in
2010
After working as a reporter in charge of Maebashi, Chiba, and the Science and Culture Department/Cultural Department, from 2021, I will be attending Higashiyama Zoo at the Nagoya Station with an "year pass".
My favorite animal is Kitazono's American bison